华裔科学家诉美商务部就业歧视案获胜 | Chinese-American scientist gets her job back
The chairman of the Committee of 100, Frank Wu, said on Thursday that Chinese-American scientist Sherry Chen is a "hero", after a US judge ruled that she was wrongfully arrested and fired due to baseless spying claims several years ago.
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Chief Administrative Judge Michele Schroeder of the Merit Systems Protection Board said on Tuesday that Chen was the "victim of a gross injustice" and the US Commerce Department had no cause to fire her.
Schroeder ordered the department to reinstate her employment at the department's National Weather Service (NWS) and pay her back pay plus benefits.
Wu, a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of Law, said the Committee of 100 — a non-profit organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, and the arts — supported Chen "because her case is so important. The whole community rallied. That deserves to be noticed. Chinese in America are stereotyped as passive and quiet — no more!"
He said that Chen has shown that Chinese Americans, including immigrants, can win by standing up and speaking out for their rights.
"This case will be a landmark — it sets a precedent. Her case is one of many. There are others who are innocent but who also have been wrongly accused. They can have hope now," Wu said.
He said that Chen will continue to need help because the government might appeal the judge's decision. "That means Sherry has won this battle, a major battle, but she has not yet won the war," he added.
In a more than 130-page detailed decision, the judge completely rejected the Commerce Department's allegations that Chen attempted to obtain secret information from a restricted government database, according to the Sherry Chen Legal Defense Fund.
"We hope this decision sends a strong message to the federal government: stop targeting innocent Chinese Americans," the fund said in a statement after the judge's decision.
"Three and a half years after her wrongful arrest in October 2014 and two years after her termination in March 2016, Sherry Chen finally has received justice," the statement read.
Chen, an employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the NWS, was accused in 2014 of stealing sensitive information from a database for the nation's dams and lying about the breach.
In March 2015, US federal prosecutors dropped charges against Chen. Two months later, 22 US Congress members urged then US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate whether there was a practice of targeting federal employees based on their race or national origin.
"There's been a history of discrimination against Asian Pacific Americans, and the recurrent theme is one of suspicion," House Representative Ted Lieu said during a press conference at that time.
Hong Xiao in New York and Xinhua contributed to this story.
Case background
On Oct 20, 2014, the US government arrested Chen in front of her coworkers at her office and charged her with 4 counts, carrying a maximum of 25 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
The charges were later increased to eight counts with even severer penalties. The US government alleged Chen accessed the National Inventory of Dams database without proper authority and lied to federal investigators. However, Chen did have proper authority to access the database and was transparent with the investigators at all times. Chen never gave any proprietary information to anyone.
Five months later, the ordeal abruptly ended. In March 2015, just a week before she was scheduled to go on trial, the government dismissed the case and dropped all charges against Chen without explanation.
Despite all charges being dropped, Chen is still not allowed to return to her job that she loves. In March 2016, Department of Commerce (DOC) terminated Chen's federal employment based on the same unfounded charges.
Everything will be fine.
感受到被"毛毛"支配的恐惧了么？春风十里，不如学习如何防过敏
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